I would make an argument that it is not a job of the university to "make citizens" at least since not everyone is supposed to go to a university. But what about the financial side? Are American students content with paying for "being made citizens" instead of the education that would actually make them a living?

@IamCleaver : It's a very fair argument. But it's also a fair argument to say that those who go to university should learn more general things about knowledge, the world, and so on. Either because they are the elites (and not everyone is supposed to go to university), or contrarily especially because we hope that everyone will go to university (as many Americans hope, or tend to assume about that level of education). Ultimately we can also ask: do we think that what people learn up to the end of highschool is enough for them to participate in modern democracy?

If you believe that everyone has to learn something, wouldn't it make more sense to teach it in high school? For free... Why not extend high school? Again, I would argue that it excessive and a waste of resources since the majority would have neither the need nor mental capacity to take in that stuff, but if a general education of that level is what you want, then this seems to be a logical solution.

@Arno What type of stuff are you talking about? By school, do you mean Gymnasium or Realschule too? I wonder where we study it in Russia.

@IamCleaver I am only talking about Gymnasium here. Stuff like differentiation, integration and basics of probability theory in math. Exposure to German and English literature (including critical analysis). In Latin, we read Seneca. Geography had stuff like wind patterns and how they shape costal climate. How the German political system works, and why. Various parts of history, with a focus on Nazi era stuff.

Are you saying that differentation and integration aren't taught in American high schools? What do they study on maths then???

@IamCleaver I have no clue at all about what is taught at American High Schools. But since "Precalculus" college courses are thing, there can't be much mathematics that everyone passing high school is expected to know.

@IamCleaver Wiki conveniently has the answer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…. Basically the same-ish you study in a Russian school, but calculus is only covered in "advanced" programs, which kind of makes sense. The most commonly cited flaw of the US school education is how much the students struggle with the basics (such as chemical equation balancing). If you have graduated somewhat recently and have passed state exams, they were modeled after the American GRE system, this (together with grading) could give you some idea of the difficulty.

Do you have a citation for your final assertion that most American students apply to a major at the same time they apply for college?

@user99478 "we hope that everyone will go to university" seeing the big problems that some countries have with the lack of professionals in care, nursing and manual labor, I am not sure if that is a good hope to have...

@wimi Why should going to university mean you can't work in care, nursing, or manual labor?

@user1772843 Why would you waste time and resources going to university to gain the knowledge just to become a manual labourer who doesn't need any of it to do his job properly. Besides, the question is not only that you "can't" be a manual labourer after university, the issue is that not everyone who can become a manual labourer can also graduate from a university.

Graduating from university requires a level of intelligence that many people who would make perfectly good manual labourers simply don't have